Here goes with the back-end upgrade, part one.
Semiologic Cache 2.0 beta is up for grabs. Heaps of other plugins (and the two themes) got updated and are in RC status in the process.
This needs a bit more testing than usual, since I've been filing quite a few bugs on the WP front that related to the new features I implemented. To participate, switch a site or two of yours to use bleeding packages under Tools / Semiologic API Key, mass-upgrade your plugins, and upgrade the theme.
The performance gains are quite significant, to say the least.
For the most part, the plugin updates and the two theme updates are about conditional flushing of caches. For instance, the nav menus cache is no longer flushed if you edit a post without editing its title, caption, or permalink.
Semiologic Cache 2.0 is of course another story. Its previous version was a forked and bug fixed version of the WP Super Cache plugin. No longer.
2.0 was rewritten from scratch and is a completely different animal:
- It requires PHP 5.0 to work; some features (the query cache) require as much as PHP 5.1.
- The niftier functionality is only available on servers with memcached installed. This is not available on shared hosts; but if you're on a VPS host, such as Hub.org, you can take full advantage of it. (I'll get in touch with Marc so that Hub.org users get memcached by default on Premium VPS and above.)
- So-called "Super caching" no longer occurs for non-key pages (i.e. everything except the front page, and singular pages). Semi-static caching takes over for other pages. This allows to expire the super cached pages automatically.
- The semi-static cache can be handled by memcached. This allows sites who live on multiple servers (such as mine) to avoid lags related to the filesystem.
- A query-level cache has been added for sites that use memcached; it significantly speeds things up for logged in users, provided they haven't authored private posts.
- A persistent object-level cache has been added. This speeds things up for much about everyone, by avoiding round trips to the database when none are needed.
- An asset-level cache has been added. It reduces the number of server requests per page by concatenating javascript and css files.
- A gzip-level cache has been added, at the apache level, for servers that support mod_deflate. This significantly reduces the size of the files sent to end-users whose browser support it.
In short, Semiologic Pro users are ready for the new indexing algorithm that Google is going to roll out early next year. As I write this post, the Semiologic Cache plugin combines the benefits of all of the available performance related WordPress plugins, and more.
It's easy to use, too. And error proof — contrary to the previous, WP-Super-Cache based versions.
How it relates to the new back-end is this: I needed a caching plugin that scaled with a WP-based membership plugin, on a site that is load balanced. The former means we get multitudes of users who are potentially logged in on a site; this rules out plugins such as wp-super-cache. The latter means we cannot use the likes of query-cache, since it's filesystem based.
I haven't tested Semiologic Cache 2.0 with WP Wishlist, from lack of a copy and license. But I 99% expect it to work as is on sites that use it.
Filed under Blog, WordPress by on Dec 16th, 2009. 3 Comments. 
There reportedly seems to be some kind of agreement that no release should occur 2 weeks before the official string freeze. That occurred very recently. There are still 20-30 tickets in the WP 2.9 todo list. So it's mostly nit picking at this stage.
Some neat features make it definitely worth the upgrade. I wouldn't jump on 2.9.0, however; especially if you're using plugins that aren't as well maintained as those from Semiologic Pro. There are over 1,000 tickets in total at the time of writing this post, and WP 2.9 introduces some subtle changes in the schema that may break a plugin here and there.
In order to deal with the WP upgrade, I'll be releasing an updated Version Checker in the next couple of days. It'll disable the WP upgrade nagging until WP 2.9.1 is released. (The same for 3.0, 3.1, etc.)
In other news, Semiologic Cache 2.0, which I've yet to start using on this site, but which I've been working on all week, is starting to look very cool. More on this in a later post.
Filed under Blog, WordPress by on Dec 11th, 2009. 6 Comments.
So… here we go again. After the ugly php 5.2 output buffer crashes, we now have the php 5.3 logic bugs:
$foo = 0;
var_dump('foo' == $foo); // true
var_dump($foo == 'foo'); // true
var_dump('foo' === $foo); // false
var_dump($foo === 'foo'); // false
If your scripts are returning completely unexplainable results on php 5.3 platforms, that's one possibility to keep in mind. I initially found it while looking into memcached-related problems.
The worst part of it, though, is that it's not a bug: it's a feature.
Filed under Blog, Highlights, WordPress by on Dec 10th, 2009. 5 Comments.
This possibly is the most disgusting story I've read in months:
Rachel Porcaro knows she's hardly rich. When you're a single mom making 10 bucks an hour, you don't need government experts to tell you how broke you are.
But that's what happened. The government not only told Porcaro she was poor. They said she was too poor to make it in Seattle.
It all started a year ago, when Porcaro, a 32-year-old mom with two boys, was summoned to the Seattle office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She had been flagged for an audit.
She couldn't believe it. She made $18,992 the previous year cutting hair at Supercuts. A few hundred of that she spent to have her taxes prepared by H&R Block.
Filed under Blog by on Dec 7th, 2009.
Semiologic Pro users with an up to date site will not be seeing it in their dashboard, since I've been modifying the way that upgrades are handled in recent months. But 6.0 has finally been released — fully 10 months after 5.7.1.
The key highlights for old time users who haven't upgraded in a year… (Those who did will find today's earlier post on Version Checker more interesting.)
Filed under Blog, Highlights, WordPress by on Nov 29th, 2009. 4 Comments.
I've released Version Checker 2.0 this morning.
This is a huge milestone for Semologic Pro users. Many thanks to all those of you who took the time to test it — in particular during the last round, when I've been fine-tuning the installer.
The new upgrader shows up prominently in the admin area when new versions of your active plugins are available:
Mass Plugin Upgrader
Simply click the button when you see it appear in your admin area, and it'll upgrade each of your individual plugins automatically.
I'm going to release a batch of other plugins in the coming days — almost all of it WP 2.9-related. So be sure to upgrade Version Checker first.
The new installer works a bit the same. I'll go through the details in Version Checker's documentation. Key highlights, though:
- WordPress, Plugins, and the theme are now installed separately, one after the other, rather than all at once.
- Everything you need is located under Tools / Semiologic, which is available once you've entered your Semiologic API Key.
- The mass plugin installer takes care of creating a .htaccess file, permission changes, and activating permalinks on your site.
The big news is, I've yet to see the new installer and upgrader fail on a single site. Crossing my fingers…
Filed under Blog, Highlights, WordPress by on Nov 29th, 2009.
I installed GD on my laptop today to give it a try:
Image Editor
Filed under Blog, WordPress by on Nov 28th, 2009.
Notice — hub.org, which hosts this site, is doing a special promo on December 1st, starting at 00:00 AST (i.e. 23:00 EST), and giving away 15 starter VPS' for free. (Over-usage charges still apply.)
Please note that this is NOT cPanel hosting … this is a real VPS with real support — of the kind you've probably never had — by the very best system administrator I've ever encountered.
The Entreprise HA plan, for instance, was created based on my own requirements: that is not one private, but a load-balanced environment instead, so as to minimize the number of single points of failure.
Anyway, highly recommended — even if you're not one of the lucky 15.
Extra note for my own customers: on hub.org, you get to install Semiologic Pro in one click using scripts that I maintain myself. (Non-Semiologic Pro users get to install WordPress using the same scripts.)
Filed under Blog, Highlights, WordPress by on Nov 25th, 2009. 1 Comment.
Now, this is a completely fascinating development:
[The adjustable rate bank note issued Aug. 4, 2004] is hereby canceled, voided, nullified, set aside and is of no further force and effect . . . the lender and its successors are barred, prohibited and foreclosed from attempting, in any manner, directly or indirectly, to enforce any provision of the mortgage loan.
– Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey A. Spinner
We never asked for this. I was shocked, honestly. It's not like we said, 'Judge, please throw the loan away.' We just wanted them [the bank] to be reasonable.
– Greg Horoski, East Patchogue Home owner.
From NewsDay, via Barry Ritholtz.
Filed under Blog by on Nov 25th, 2009.
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